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Eugen Bleuler – Dementia Praecox or the Group Of Schizophrenias

The voices not only speak to the patient, but they pass electricity through the body, beat him, paralyse him, take his thoughts away. They are often hypostasised as people, or in other very bizarre ways. For example, a patient claims that a "'voice" is perched above each of his ears.

One voice is a little larger than the other but both are almost the size of a walnut, and they consist of nothing but a large ugly mouth.

Threats or curses form the main and most common content of the "voices" Day and night they come from everywhere, from the walls, from above and below, from the cellar and the roof, from heaven and from hell, from near and far  ….  When the patient is eating, he hears a voice saying, "Each mouthful is stolen." If he drops something, he hears, "If only your foot had been chopped off."

The voices are often very contradictory. At one time they may be against the patient . . . then they may contradict themselves ….. The roles of pro and con are often taken over by voices of different people ….. The voice of a daughter tells a patient: "He is going to be burned alive," while his mother's voice says, "He will not be burned." Besides their persecutors the patients often hear the voice of some protector.

The voices are often localized in the body …… A polyp may be the occasion for localising the voices in the nose. An intestinal disturbance brings them into connection with the abdomen …… In cases of sexual complexes, the penis, the urine in the bladder, or the nose utter obscene words' …. A real or imaginatively gravid patient will hear her child speaking inside her womb..

Inanimate objects may speak.  The lemonade may speak.  The patient’s name may be coming from a glass of milk.  The furniture speaks to him